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Tuesday, October 12, 2010

My two cents on Doc-tober...

I'm surprised there's even a debate about this. How can one not be happy for Halladay? Yeah, he's wearing Phillies red instead of Jays teal/black/baby blue/white/silver/etc but so what? We won 85 games this year, we have Drabek waiting in the wings, and frankly I feel a lot better about the future of this franchise than I did at this time two years ago. And yet, I see this bitterness, this resentment, this entitlement towards Doc and his 2010 success. Why? We're not talking about Alex Rios, who pulled an Alex-being-Manny and quit on us. We're not talking about A.J. Burnett who opted out of his contract to sign with the one team that would hurt our chances the most. He's not David Wells, Shea Hillenbrand, or Raul Mondesi who whined, complained, and otherwise pouted their way out of town. Halladay gave this franchise everything he had for over a decade. He could have left before this season, but he didn't. He didn't leave until it was clear that Toronto wasn't going to be able to pay him anywhere near market-value. He wanted to play in October, something that didn't seem to be in the Jays immediate future. And when he finally was dealt, he was gracious about it. It was bittersweet to be sure, but he wished us well and we, for the most part, wished him well. I think most Jays fans still feel this way, but clearly the bitter has overtaken the sweet, at least for some. I think a lot of it has to do with Toronto's unexpected success this season. If we had just kept Halladay, could we have been in contention? The fact is, we probably would have. Doc, Romero, Marcum, Cecil, and Morrow would have been among the best rotations in baseball. But, at the risk of cliche-ing myself to death, hindsight never needs contact lenses. A lot of things went right for Toronto this year. Jose Bautista, for instance. He hit a few more home runs than one might have thought, you might have read about that. Vernon Wells, surprisingly, looked like Vernon Wells. The Braves agreed to give us Yunel Escobar in return for an older, not as talented, version of Yunel Escobar. The back three of that aforementioned rotation gave us seasons we had no right to expect. John Buck did his best Bengie Molina impersonation and gave us one very solid season at the plate before (most likely) moving on. John McDonald finished with the same slugging % as Jorge Posada (it's true, look it up). Even Kevin Gregg finished with good numbers, which was a shock to all of us who watched him pitch into trouble seemingly every game. Even disappointing seasons from Hill, Lind, and Tallet were absorbed by good pitching and 257 home runs. So.....as it turns out...if we had held on to Halladay for this one last year of his contract, we might be getting ready for a Texas - Toronto game five tonight. But, of course, all of this is speculation. No one expected 85 wins from this roster. The Phillies offered one of the best pitching prospects in baseball. A.A. was able to wrangle two more top prospects out of the deal. Halladay wouldn't be back in 2011. It was a deal that had to be made. For all the Jays fans who cringe everytime they see Halladay make a batter look foolish and wonder what might have been...relax. As I said before, the future is bright. Now is the time to look forward. Look forward to Drabek and Arencibia, look forward to the resurgance of Lind and Hill, look forward to Tallet being waived, look forward to Burnett giving up 5 runs in 3+ innings in Game 4 of the ALCS, and look forward to Doc finally having his day. He deserves it.